Thody's American Adventures

Bluegrass
music, flatfoot dancing and almost 500 miles of unspoilt
scenery weave a spell that is uniquely American over the
hills and valleys of the central Appalachians. Follow
the Blue Ridge Parkway with British road tripper Peter
Thody as he discovers the rustic charm of a 70-year-old
wooden cabin, meets a park ranger who doesn't really like
tourists, and crosses a bridge that doesn't quite live
up to its name.

Bunyan
and Ted, two members of the team who keep traditional
farming skills alive at the Mountain Farm, next
door to Humpback Rocks Visitor Center near the
northern entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway.

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Photo
by Peter Thody

It's hard to imagine today, I know, but there
was a point in America's not-too-distant past when times were
so bad (mortgage foreclosures, bank failures and rising unemployment
- that kind of thing) that the government was forced to step
in with a range of policies aimed at pulling the country back
out of depression.

Yes, this was Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal
of the 1930s, and alongside a package of economic reforms
that included the repeal of Prohibition and the launch of
the Social Security system, there was also a huge investment
in public works, designed to pump-prime the economy.

One of the largest of these projects was the Blue Ridge
Parkway, 469 miles of all-American road that today links Shenandoah
National Park, in Virginia, with Great
Smoky Mountains National Park, in North Carolina. Its
purpose - other than to create employment during the Great
Depression - was, and remains today, to provide city dwellers
with easy access to the natural beauty and recreational opportunities
of the Blue Ridge region of the Southern Appalachians.

The disruption of a lifestyle generally untroubled
by government agencies, up to and including the forced relocation
of anyone who happened to live in its path, meant that the
parkway wasn't universally welcomed by those who actually
lived in the mountains. It's therefore maybe a little insensitive
that the first visitor center heading south is home to Humpback
Rocks Mountain Farm, a working farm based around a collection
of period farm buildings - including my favourite, a bear-proof
pigpen - showing how life had been before they built the road.
Ah well, at least it provides employment for the locals.

From here, Carole and I settle into a nice and
easy first day's drive through rich, green, heavily wooded
countryside, stopping occasionally to follow a winding trail
down to a waterfall or to watch a young deer grazing under
a tree. There's no danger of missing anything either: The
entire parkway is mile-posted and every possible attraction,
from trading posts and restaurants to creeks and cabins, is
listed on the National Park Service leaflet by its distance
from the northern entrance.

We stop for lunch at the Peaks of Otter restaurant
(milepost 86) with its picture postcard views out over Abbot
Lake, take a short hike through the woods to Roanoke River
Gorge (114.9), turn off at the wonderfully named town of Meadows
of Dan (178) to stock up on provisions, then head back to
the rustic charm of our home for the night, Rocky
Knob Cabins (174).

Built in 1936 to house members of the Civilian
Conservation Corps working on the parkway, these wooden cabins
can't have changed much since then. There are beds, a cooker,
a fridge and basic cooking utensils. Outside there's a small
porch and two wooden rocking chairs. And what more do you
need? Dinner's bubbling away, we're mellowing with a beer,
and we've been joined on the porch by the 6-year-old girl
from the cabin next door, who has clearly been persuaded by
her family to come over to ask the questions grown-ups can't.
"Are you strangers? Where are you from?" And then
one of her own, "Why do you talk funny?"

The next day, after breakfasting at the extremely
popular café next to Mabry Mill (milepost 176.1), we
hit the road once more. The weather is far from ideal - grey
skies and low clouds limit the appeal of the scenic overlooks
- but our first stop-off, the Blue
Ridge Music Center, transforms the entire journey.

Just outside the main entrance to the center,
the Buck
Mountain Band is playing a set of traditional two-step
and waltz music, and it is absolutely captivating. Between
them, the fiddle, guitar, banjo and double bass produce a
traditional folk sound - one with very obvious roots in traditional
Irish and Scottish folk music - that puts a smile on the faces
of everyone listening, not to mention a twitch in the leftest
of feet. Friends of the band turn up to say hi; one woman
gets up and dances "flatfoot," and between each
piece the fiddle player, Bob Taylor, explains a little more
about the history of the music.

In the half hour we're there, the Blue Ridge
Parkway is transformed from a picturesque drive through misty
greenery into something far, far deeper: a road that flows
through the Appalachian Mountains and takes us close to people
for whom this music is as much a part of their lives as eating
and drinking. It's a genuinely moving experience.

However, the truth is that the parkway wasn't
built for these people but despite them. "People round
here didn't want the parkway," explains the National
Park Service ranger inside the center. "They like to
keep themselves to themselves. Still like that. We'll smile
and welcome you but deep down we haven't changed," she
tells us, before adding, rather darkly, "There's no crime
up here - we've all got guns."

She probably wasn't born when the road first
cut through the Appalachians but she would certainly have
been aware of people's feelings as a youngster. The fact that
she now makes a living from the tourist attraction she so
evidently despises doesn't appear to concern her one bit.
Maybe it's her way of getting her own back?

As we cross the border into North Carolina, the
scenery continues to switch between fenced farmland, dense
woodland and occasional overlooks. We stop for lunch, the
sun comes out, we hike down to some falls and generally allow
the place to wash over us. We've lost the need to stop at
every overlook and photograph every log cabin, and instead
just enjoy the simple pleasure of driving.

After a night in the slightly-too-New-Age-for-my-taste
town of Blowing Rock (twee stores and craft outlets), we start
Day 3 by travelling along the sweeping Linn Cove Viaduct,
the final section of road that completed the parkway in 1985.
We then head to Grandfather
Mountain for its famous Mile High Swinging Bridge, a roadside
attraction in the finest tradition: utterly pointless (it
simply links two viewing points), not actually a mile high
(it is measured from sea level) and, best of all, it doesn't
swing. But it's worth the visit simply because someone bothered
to build it.

For the final 150 miles or so of our journey,
we're aware that a fair chunk of the parkway is closed for
renovation and that this involves a diversion south onto Interstate
40, rejoining the parkway at Asheville. However, the Park
Service has left the road open as far west as Mount
Mitchell State Park, home to the highest mountain east
of the Mississippi. We therefore ignore the various detour
signs and travel a good half hour further west. So it's a
little frustrating when we finally get there to discover that
the summit itself is closed to the public as they're busy
installing a new observation deck.

I know the Park Service should be applauded for
leaving the roads open to those more rounded folks who actually
want to hike, but for shallow people like me, who simply want
to visit somewhere with a "highest," "longest"
or similar superlative in its description, I think they could
have provided some kind of warning of possible disappointment.

After retracing our steps, we exit the parkway
on the beautifully winding North Carolina Highway 80 before
picking up U.S. Route 70 to Old Fort. Unfortunately, this
brief diversion brings us back down to earth with, if not
quite a bang, then certainly a dull thud. Up on the parkway,
there's beauty everywhere you look; down here in the valley,
real life carries on as usual. Car radios find stations to
tune into, traffic lights make an unwelcome reappearance on
the landscape and, for the first time in two-and-a-half days,
time seems to matter.

In short, the spell is broken.

Even when we rejoin the parkway at Asheville
and enter the section that goes through the Pisgah
National Forest, it all seems very "samey" and
the last 70 or 80 miles, while beautiful beyond argument,
feel as much a necessity as a pleasure.

But a slight sense of letdown in the final couple
of hours shouldn't be allowed to colour what has been a truly
wonderful drive along a remarkable road. If I could do it
again, I'd maybe reverse the journey and drive north rather
than south - there just seems to be more to see and do in
the Virginia section - and I'd take four days over it, instead
of three. But the important thing is that I would, without
question, do it again tomorrow.

Wouldn't it be nice if today's economic stimulus
measures were making people feel this good another 75 years
down the line?